Under the Shade of the Plum Tree
by shapes and colors
Summary: "What is more mortifying than to feel that you have missed the plum for want of courage to shake the tree?"
1. white chrysanthemum- lamentation, grief

I stood alone in a field in the middle of winter, husks of withered wheat rasping in the frigid breeze. Dense and heavy clouds promised a downpour. The wind tore through me, and I realized dimly that I was wearing my favorite white sundress. How silly of me. Out of curiosity, I touched the head of a dead plant—it hissed as it crackled into dust. The sound reminded me of a—

Rattlesnake. Snake. Snake. I was supposed to be running from something. Something was coming to kill me.

Fear frosted my insides, coating me from the tips of my toenails to the top of my head. It was coming, fast, so fast that I had no way of ever ever ever getting away in time. The fact that I still drew breath was the most hysterical of redundancies. I felt like laughing, crying, and screaming all at once, but they all congeal in my throat. Tears froze everything inside, creating a large lump of stupid fear.

As my death skulked closer and closer, I felt a sudden spark of _anger_. I _was not _going to die a pathetic lump of stupid. That spark was enough to crack the ice, and I ran. I was always pathetic at running when commanded to in gym and sports, but when it was important I could haul my voluptuous ass.

It did no good. The hissing wheat gave away my position and the cold fear came creeping up and down my spine once more. I panted with desperate exertion, the breath slipping between my teeth too fast. I knew I could not keep this speed up. The field was never ending, and my stamina was not. I kept going, angrily screaming at my legs that they had to keep up or I would no longer require their services. It had minimal effect.

It kept getting closer. I neared the end of my life.

I went faster. It did no good.

Another spark of courage—resignation—determination—consumed me, and I stopped to face my death. I would die with dignity. As I turned, I stopped in surprised wonder. In the distance, too far to run to for shelter, was the most glorious, majestic tree I had ever seen. It rose to the crest of the sky, pink, white, and purple blossoms dancing sweetly in the wind. It looked like home, like a hug from my dad and my favorite spot of sunshine and a book on a rainy day all wrapped into one thing. Before I knew it, my cheeks were wet with tears and I felt a tender sense of peace.

In a flash—before the claws shredded my neck—before teeth ripped into my gullet—I realized that tree was something terribly important to me. Maybe it was my soul, I philosophized later, or something else entirely. I was now aware that I was dreaming. It was a strange dream, to be sure, but _thank God I was dreaming_. Now all I had to do was ignore the pain of fangs and claws and wake up—

_wake up—_

_wake UP—_

With a gasp, I opened my eyes to see the comforting sight of the cheap tiled ceiling of my dorm room. I was safe. I was fine. It was a bad dream, after all. I sat up, disentangling the sweat soaked sheet from my bare legs and wiping the tears that still lingered on my cheeks with my ratty t shirt. Out of habit, I checked the time to make sure I hadn't slept though a class. To my luck, it was three minutes until my first alarm went off. I heaved a long sigh, sitting back onto the pillows in thought. _What a strange dream…_ My adrenaline still ran so high that I barely needed my morning dose of coffee—a shocking development to a perpetually sleep-deprived college student. Chasing the last wisps of the dream away, I went through my schedule for the day, another comforting habit I had developed. Today, I had Islamic studies, followed by neuroscience and an organic chemistry lab in the afternoon, and a test tomorrow that needed three or four more hours of studying before I could sleep again plus three more hours of homework aside. I hopped off of the narrow bed to the rest of my morning routine.

Later, I would wonder if anyone else had ever dreamed of dying the day before they died. Maybe everyone did, but most people never mentioned it, or forgot about it until the very seconds before darkness struck. Maybe my subconscious knew something that I did not, and was trying to protect me from the painful truth barreling towards me with every second that slipped by.

After all was said and very permanently done, I mourned the fact that I did not wait around for my roommate to get back from her morning yoga class, to hug her silly one last time, or that I did not poke my head into any amount of friends' rooms to wish them good morning, or that I didn't call my parents to say "I love you".

I proceeded as though everything was normal, scraping together an outfit that was somewhere between "bad bitch" and "I have officially given up on looking super hot, so tepid is going to have to do for now". Gathering my books and papers, I slipped out of the dorm building and began the trek to main campus, grabbing a granola bar and yesterday's green tea in a can to tide me over until actual breakfast.

As I strolled, I felt my hands and feet grow cold disproportionately to the weather. Befuddled, I rubbed my hands together, deciding it was a combination of poor circulation and January's chill. With a creeping sense of alarm, the cold advanced up my forearms and past my knees, pins and needles biting every pocket of warmth. Now sure something was wrong, I increased my pace, desperate to get indoors and warm my numb limbs.

I never made it. With sudden force, my knees buckled and I collapsed on the sidewalk, the cold slithering and squirming into every crevice, suffocating my organs and tissues and all I could think was _Oh my God, this is how I'm going to die right here right now oh my God-! _

As though from the bottom of a deep pool, I heard people gathering around me, "Someone call 911—" "Oh my G—" "What's wrong with her, is this a drug over—" "Check her pulse, her eyes are rolling back—" "Is she having a seizure—" "She's foaming at the mouth, look—" "Her lips are blue… I don't think that's good—"

I wanted to scream, I wanted to cry, but the terrible chill wrapped a vise around my chest and lungs and my eyesight was going to black and I was so, so terribly afraid of the ice settling itself into my chest and I was dying in the middle of a crowd of strangers and—

And—

The darkness swirled up to meet me, and I sank into its embrace.

* * *

Sunlight warmed my fingers and bones, and the scent of my favorite flowers fluttered to my nose. Gardenias and honeysuckle along with every kind of green thing swelled into a fragrant melody, lifting my eyelids with their pleasant song. The sky was blue and the ground was soft with heather and sweet grass. I could not recall being so well rested, so at ease, since I was a child of three. No worries assaulted me, no anxieties about the future or a test or a job prickled my skin. Nothing needed me, and all I needed was to stay right where I was.

I sat up with care and gazed upon a field bursting with every kind of wild flower. Gold, royal blue, red, purple, yellow, pink, and every other color dotted the field all the way to the horizon. A crisp, cooling wind told me that it was near the beginning of spring.

I heard rustling nearby, and turned around to see the tree—_my_ tree—in the distance. It was closer than last time, close enough so that I could see that it was as thick around as my old dorm room and that its tallest branches might actually brush the sky. The white and purple blossoms twirled and danced to see me, gesturing for me to come closer and say hello.

"A plum tree," I whispered to the wind, the knowledge sprouting from an unknown patch of soil nestled deep in my mind. I started toward it with measured steps.

"Hello, my old friend."

I pivoted, not in shock but in happy surprise. The voice I heard was the rustling of leaves in a nighttime storm and wind chimes in a steady breeze and the trickling of a newborn brook.

"Do I know…?" The sight of her stole my words—she was radiance and light, tone and sound, every color and texture and angle and form. I fell shaking to my hands and knees, unable to face her in her great glory.

Out of the corner of my eye I witnessed her pad forward, and the very plants rose up to meet her, like soldiers standing at attention in front of their queen or a dog coming to give a happy greeting. I concentrated on keeping myself upright from the dizzying display, limbs quivering like a newborn lamb's.

She reached to cup my cheek and lifted my head in the process. She had dimmed her glow—enough so that I could see her form without weeping and gnashing of teeth. Appearing similar to a mortal woman in no way diminished her beauty. In fact, her youth and grace far surpassed that of any woman, living or dead, except perhaps Helen herself.

Gathering the wits that had scattered at the sight of her, I managed to whimper once more, "Who are you?"

She smiled with a hint of wistfulness. "You know me, my friend."

Somehow, I knew she was correct. Her form, her grace, her majesty were as familiar and constant as the rhythm of my own lungs.

"But… _how _do I know you?"

Her smile lost some of its melancholy. "A better question. Your mythology calls me Persephone, the goddess of spring. Once, long ago and before the age of men, you were my handmaiden and harbinger."

I blinked and found that my heart had already accepted this as absolute truth. My mother always pronounced that instinct guided better and truer than the mind, and I believed her enough to refrain from a skeptical assertion and let her continue.

Her eyes softened with an ancient burden. "One day, you lost your immortality and died. Ever since, with the help of my husband, I have guided your every reincarnation to keep you as safe as possible."

I couldn't help a muffled snort. "Not terribly safe in that last one, was I? I died on the sidewalk in the middle of strangers! I was terrified and cold and more alone than I have ever been! I had no chance to say… goodbye…" Tears clogged my throat as I waited for chastisement for my angry outburst.

"Death is not the most evil of outcomes. You and I, of all people, should know that very well." It had slipped my mind on who her husband was, but now it hit me with the force of an eighteen-wheeler. This stunning creature was bound to Hades, the god of death. Of course, to her, death would not be the worst outcome, seeing as she shared a bed with him.

"Besides that, you agreed to die young before you went in. Your death set dozens of people on paths they would not have otherwise chosen. Combined, they make the world a better place."

I could see where this was going. "So my death inspired people to do exceptional things that they wouldn't have otherwise done?"

Her eyes glittered like a stream in the sunshine. "Precisely. One of your friends will go into research, eventually finding a way to make artificial hearts, which removes the need for organ donation wait lists and averting tens of thousands of tragedies. Another becomes a famous author instead of an accountant, another revolutionizes the political system. All because you were their friend, and you were taken far too soon.

I made no response because bitterness clogged my throat. Where was _my_ chance to do amazing things?

She offered her hand to me as a gesture to stand. "It's time for you to go on."

The gentle meadow peeled away as though it had never been—perhaps it never had. What I now saw was a wood that was as serene as it was solid; it was far more real than anything I had ever seen previously. It was like putting glasses on for the first time, not even realizing that they were needed until the entire world snapped into clarity. The canopy of trees covered the sun, and only filtered green rays reached us on the forest floor, littered with small pools of water throughout.

The beautiful woman—Persephone—the goddess of spring—led me to a nearby pool. "What would you like your life to be like this time? I can shift a few things around, as a thank you for your last life."

Even here the plants all strained to meet her, I noted with befuddled amusement. "Wait. Where are we?"

"One of your writers called this place the Wood between the Worlds, and it is apt enough. This is the pond that contains the portal into your world, and that is the place to which you are going back."

I blinked, arrested by a thought. "My world? How is it not yours as well? And more worlds than just my own exist?"

Her eyes twinkled. "How shall I phrase this…? Even in this place, it rains, and drops are shifted from one pool to another. And then, there are underground rivers that connect every tree and every leaf. That is the place from which you know me." She glanced at the sky, which had started to darken. "And now you must choose. Do you have any specific requests, or may I plant you where I will?"

I sucked in a few calming breaths. How could I dive into my next life—which apparently made reincarnation a thing—so soon after I had left my previous? The pain of losing my friends and family still lingered like a bruised heart.

As I thought, another part of my mind admired the figure in front of me. Her beauty, power, and kindness, her perfect alliance with the natural world. As I did, a simple, pure desire was born.

"I want to be like you."

She blinked once in surprise. "I… I am very flattered." She stared off into the distance, thoughts heavy on her brow. "Maybe not in this one… there's no real _reason_ that I can't put her somewhere else…"

She turned back to me, the sparkle of an idea in her eyes. "Come!" she fluted, grabbing my wrist and whisking me away at a fast pace. We jumped over logs, skirted bogs, and galloped over moss and other detritus until we came to another still pool.

"This one shall do very nicely. After thousands of reincarnations in one place, it's a good time for a change of pace, isn't it?"

"Wait. Thousands?" I squeaked.

"Well, no, eight hundred and sixty-two I believe, but thousands sounded so much more dramatic and fitting for the occasion, wouldn't you say?

I shook my head. "Yeah, definitely. Sure." I peered into the placid pool. "So this is my new home?" I couldn't see any differences between this one and the last one.

She nodded. "It's even one you're passingly familiar with. Not that it matters, since it's standard procedure to wipe your memories before you return."

Cold dread trickled down my spine. _No! _I did not want to forget a single thing about this life! I wasn't ready—not to die, not to forget, although both choices were being taken from me.

The goddess of spring either didn't notice my plight, or chose to ignore it in favor of watching the still darkening sky once more. "We need to hurry. There are things that wander these woods after dark that not even a goddess dares face."

I nodded, sick at heart. "Let's get this over with, then." I touched the water with my bare feet, and I noticed that I was once more wearing my white dress. Saying _goodbye, goodbye_ in my heart to so many people, I waded in without a backwards glance, even though I longed to see her splendor once more.

She only noticed I had moved when the water was up to my hips. "Wait, _Wait!_ You must drink from the water, or else you will not forget! An infant mind is not meant to hold the memories of an adult!"

_Or else you will not forget. _I stopped, but I was sinking on my own accord. Suspecting that she could not come after me, I turned for a final glance. As she looked on me with urgency, a devilish thought appeared. I locked my lips, threw away the key, winked, covered my nose, and took a deep breath before I ducked myself under the water.

"You fool!" I heard her scream, but it was too late; no water was going past these lips. Her shouts faded away, and soon I heard strains of a melody only half forgotten and colors and shapes that drew familiar patterns in my mind. For the second time in as many hours, darkness came to meet me, and I fell once more.

Meanwhile, the goddess of spring glared at the pool with a combination of shock, indignance, and a hint of amused resignation.

"You were always a bit of an imp, my plum tree."

And with that, I began the grandest of adventures.

* * *

A/N: Hello, friends! This is my first ever fanfiction, although I have been reading them for nigh on eight years now. Please be gentle!

A few things I would like to address:

1. The actual Naruto parts will come in the next chapter, I promise! Hold tight!

2. This is an OC fiction (inspired by Silver Queen's Dreaming of Sunshine, so brilliant and beautiful! Go read!), so if that is not your cup of tea there are hundreds of thousands of other fics out there for you to enjoy instead of this one :) I realize that most people associate OC-as-main-character fics with Mary-Sues, but I will endeavor to break your expectations ;)

3. I am a full time college student (that bit up there was taken from my actual life/schedule and not even a little bit exaggerated, much to my dismay!) so updates will be sporadic. I will try my hardest to update at least once a month, although I cannot promise that with absolute certainty.

4. Last, but not least- the myth of Hades and Persephone will crop up quite a few times, and I will do my best to explain the pertinent parts! However, if you have no idea what I'm talking about/would like to go a little deeper into the story, feel free to look it up :)

Namaste,

shapes and colors


	2. bay leaf- i change, but in death

For the longest time, darkness that wasn't quite dark enough and warmth that never quite warmed me were all that I knew. I drifted in and out of semi-awareness, like I was deep underwater in a fever dream. Time stretched into putty. Some days I tried to move my body, if only to prove to myself that I still had one, but it was strange— my limbs did not move as I instructed them to. Some days I felt bubbles rising inside of me, coursing through my veins unlike anything I had ever experienced. When I was aware enough to think about my situation, I mostly took it philosophically; I'd wanted a break anyway, why not like this? And so I kept dreaming on.

I persisted like this for an undetermined amount of time, until the day I was snapped from my trance and plucked from my dark home with no warning. It was like being thrust into noon-day light after living in a cave and being thrown naked into an icy pond in the middle of winter all at the same time. From behind squinted eyes I saw unknown figures—_giants! They must be fifty feet tall!_ — handling me and speaking in gibberish. Fear and confusion overwhelmed me, and I felt my body reacting without my explicit consent—screaming, crying, and shaking fists that still somehow seemed strange to me. Another figure took me and wiped me down, avoiding my protesting limbs and feeble cries, and wrapped me up into a tight little bundle. I tried to ask—_where_ _am I, who are you, what's happening to me?!_ But the figure left before I could let out more than a confused gurgle.

I was cold, upset, hungry, and mystified as to what was going on. To add injury to insult, my head _hurt _and there was an uncomfortable effervescent quality in my blood that I had never felt before_. _My already foggy vision blurred with tears as another unwanted cry breached my lips, rising to a howling crescendo as someone else picked me up and proceeded to prod with various instruments. I meant to say _don't do that_, but instead the wailing from my lungs intensified. The one holding the tools snapped off something in a harsh staccato, but my mind only registered the syllables and not the meaning.

Fear scraped against me as I gathered what I could about my situation. I was weak, almost blind, immobilized, and possibly injured in a place where I did not understand the language. For whatever reason, the people around me were five times my size and could manhandle me as they pleased. Anything could happen to me. As I started to panic, my cries rose in volume once more, until the one prodding me passed me off again. The person holding me this time was far gentler, speaking in the same strange language as the others, rocking me sweetly back and forth. Despite my ongoing fear, I felt myself softly slip into slumber.

* * *

I awoke in the same field of flowers as before. This time, I sat against my gigantic plum tree and pondered my situation. How long had it been since I was last here? A day, a month, a year? A century? I had no way of knowing. Had everything since I had been here last been a dream? Would I wake up in my old life, shaking my head at this crazy nightmare?

Before I could muse too deeply, I was interrupted by a familiar voice. "Hello again, friend."

Where there had once been nothing but air now stood the goddess of spring, Persephone herself. Still awed by her presence and swirling form, I stood and stumbled out an awkward curtsy.

"I am very frustrated by you right now, you know. It does not often happen that people slip from one life to the next with memories intact, and it has caused me a massive bureaucratic headache. Do you know how many papers I have had to fill out to fix all of this?" While she was certainly peeved, I could sense that she was not truly enraged, if only by the fact that I still drew breath. Some unknown, primordial sense told me that if I truly angered her, not even my toenails would escape her decimation.

Feeling a bit sheepish, as well as a bit befuddled that a goddess even had to deal with paperwork, I tried to placate her. "I'm really sorry, but—"

In a motion both elegant and irritated, she gestured for me to stop. "What's done is done. It is not completely your fault. I should have kept a better eye on you, but we've done this so many times that I did not think that anything would—or even could—go awry."

The thought of having done all of this hundreds of times before without any recollection at all humbled and horrified me. I shook it off as I asked, "What's going on? What's happening to me? Where did you put me, and what language are they speaking? And why are they so huge?"

She shook her head and released a dainty chortle. "How have you not yet deduced it?" Taking in my confused and frustrated face, she replied, "I will give you a hint by wishing you a happy birthday."

"What? But how could it be my birthday? My birthday's in…" I stopped, realization dawning. Oh. _Oh_. "But… but _how_? I'm an adult!"

She narrowed her eyes and raised her voice into a clamorous tempest. "That is precisely the _point_. That is why people discard their memories before they move on, or else their infant minds will_ burn_ and they will spend the rest of their lives stuck inside of a mentally handicapped shell, forced to rely on other people to feed and change their _husk_ until they die and can discard memories of both lives to start anew."

I was… horrified. "No… no! I don't want that! I don't want to be trapped like that!" Despair and dismay dripped through every pore. "I didn't mean to…! Please don't..!"

Her face—at first bearing the vestiges of a wrathful goddess—mellowed into mercy. "You are very lucky, my plum blossom. I can let you have access to this place," she gestured to the meadow and tree, "to help you. While your mind grows, you can take shelter here without accidentally harming yourself. If you stay here, for at least most of your first year of life, you will have no adverse effects."

The anxiety that had so suddenly weighed me down melted away. "Thank you, goddess. Thank you so much."

"Do not thank me quite yet. The path I have planted you on is full of hardship and suffering, and you must work hard to insure that you—and whomever you befriend—do not fall into ruin. If you choose the right path and keep to it, you will have the good, long life that you could not have in your previous. Is that understood?"

Her words, like stones, hit me with the heavy weight of prophecy. I nodded with grave intent. "Yes. I understand."

She nodded in return. "Good. Then this will be the last time that I see you, until the day you return to my husband, and then to me." Her face softened. "Have the best life. Do not mess it up by dying too quickly. And—like you asked, you will be 'like me'. I will leave the particulars for you as a surprise."

She turned away from me toward the horizon line. Before she could disappear once more, I shouted, "Wait! Before, you said that I was 'passingly familiar' with this world. Where am I?"

She didn't bother to turn around. "You've irritated me enough with your antics that I do not desire to give you a straight answer. I will give you one hint in my farewell; _Sayonara!_"

And with that, the space she had occupied was once again empty, the wildflowers around it waving goodbye.

And once again, I was alone in my meadow. I sighed and sat against my tree, settling in for a long wait.

* * *

A routine soon developed. Whenever my body woke up, I would "check in" to make sure I was being fed. I soon realized that several different caretakers fed me, although I still had trouble with my vision, let alone recognizing who was who. They also changed me whenever I needed it, and thankfully I could check out for those experiences.

Since I was a newborn, I slept for more than half of the day anyway, making it easier to determine just how much was "too much" for my infant brain to handle. I soon developed a rule of thumb; if I was starting to get a headache, it was time to check out. I could usually spend only ten to fifteen minutes there at a time before the headaches arrived, and that length increased very slowly over time. I spent most of my first and second month in this way.

When I was in my meadow, I wondered what happened when I wasn't there to steer the ship, so to say. I guessed that my body probably slept or went on auto-pilot, doing normal baby things. While I was there I also tried to guess just where exactly I had ended up, but with only a cryptic _Sayonara_ and pathetic baby-sight to help me, I couldn't determine much. I could guess, however, that I was in some Japan-based world. Listening to my caretakers tenuously confirmed that the language they spoke was Japanese, although with only the most rudimentary knowledge (in my past life, I could count to three in Japanese only sometimes) the confirmation was tentative. I could only hope that I had ended up in a nice world. I prayed that I had not landed in a horror- based universe. Although, that would be pretty typical, now that I thought of it.

I spent a long time imagining the faces of the loved ones I had lost so that I would never forget them, even when decades had passed. I recommitted to memory all of the aspects of my old life so that they could share a place with the new memories I was sure to make, instead of being overwhelmed by them.

I also spent a long time simply being lonely. By nature, I craved contact and conversation, and being a baby incapable of speech severely limited that as a matter of course. Some days I cried for no particular reason, and no force on earth—_or wherever the heck I was_—could calm my lamentations.

So I spent my days drifting, feeling sorry for myself, eating, and pooping. "Not too different from my teenage days," I tried to explain to the caretaker that held me the most often, who I suspected might be female. She either didn't understand English, or I needed to work on speaking without teeth and using completely different vocal cords. I suspected it might have been a combination of the two.

The beginning of my third month brought about several changes of routine. For one thing, I was able to bear the weight of my own gigantic noggin and sit up, seeing the world with unfogged eyes for the first time. The room I spent the most time in looked nothing at all like a nursery, I realized; there were no pastel baby decorations or toys. Not even a tiny cartoon bear decorated the gray walls. In fact, the room reminded me of my times spent in a lab in my past life than anything else, for uneasy reasons I could not quite grasp at the moment.

My primary caretaker was an old woman whose name I never discovered. She was business-like and bustling, stopping by in her quest to make sure I was adequately fed and washed. She rarely indulged in baby talk, for which I was grateful; she mostly just spoke to me in a measured, soothing voice, like she was mentioning to an old friend how lovely the weather was outside. I liked her. She held me the most and that alleviated some of the terrible loneliness I was enduring.

The other ones were all terribly strange. Some had facial tattoos and gruesome scars. Others had wild hair and hair colors, ranging from normal browns and blacks to pink and purple and orange. Worse yet, I suspected that they were _natural_ pink and purple heads, since none of them had any roots that I could see. Once I determined this, I ruefully put another check mark in the "possibly an anime world, however that works" column, given that I could think of no other art form that indulged in such things.

I suspected that none of them were relatives, only because none of them seemed very interested in me. The only person I could tentatively label as mine was my favorite old woman who clucked and murmured to me every day. This led me to wonder who and where my parents were, but no answers were forthcoming.

While all of this was happening, the bubbling feeling in my veins never ceased, but I grew used to it and shrugged it off as the strange quirk of a newborn body. Until, of course, one day.

In a rare excursion from my bleak room, my old woman took me outside with her one day so she could hang some laundry to dry. Because this was the first time I had been outside of my room with my newfound ability to actually see things, I noted that the facility in which we all lived was located underground and that we had to go through several dark tunnels with an escort in order to leave. I also found it curious that when we were outside, we had a guard stay with us. _To protect us…? Or to keep us from running away? _I wondered.

Regardless, to be in bona fide sunshine, rather than the kind my own mind provided for me, was a true treat. I kept myself firmly checked in to experience every fleck of light and every breath of sweet, perfumed air the summer weather provided. My caretaker must have noticed my good mood, for she tickled my belly and hummed to me every time her work took her by. On one such sweep, she plucked a wildflower and tickled my nose with it. In a fit of silliness, I nipped the head off of the flower and giggled, just like a real baby.

"No, no, baby girl," she breathed, plucking the chewed up bits of flower from my mouth. I was pleased with the progress of my language skills, seeing as I understood her most basic words. She sighed and set the wilted stem just out of my reach, patting my cheek as she went back to work.

Feeling just a little bit mischievous, I reached forward in an attempt to retrieve the stem to munch on it. Not able to reach, I fell onto my belly and started to crawl for the first time. Pleased at my increased mobility, I inched until the stem was almost in my grasp. I snatched it with all five fingers, and that was when it happened.

The bubbles that had rested in my bloodstream and just out of my awareness churned and strengthened. It didn't hurt, but it was very surprising—like my entire body was a soda bottle, and some giant hand shook it until it fizzed to overflowing. Suddenly, and without permission, the bubbles in the hand holding the wilted stem _surged_ and—

Bloomed. The fizzy energy swept into the broken stem and rejuvenated every leaf and bud. I felt my own strength coating and fixing every chloroplast, every xylem and phloem, until the previously limp flower was gone; in my hand, a revitalized blossom replaced the previous, stronger and hardier than the one before in every way. Once everything was fixed, the bubbles receded and resumed their normal background noise.

In shock, I released an unholy howl. My old woman tottered over to see what was wrong, and stopped. Muttering something beyond my vocabulary, she took the flower from my hand and examined it. Through teary eyes, I noticed that her hands shook far more than normal.

The guard, almost forgotten, rushed in to see what had happened. As he took in the situation, he turned to the old woman and gestured toward me in excitement, speaking too fast and with too many unfamiliar words for me to process. The old woman replied by shaking her head in fear and grasping the arm of the guard with desperation. With contempt, he swept her pleas away and shifted his focus to me.

He approached softly, slowly, picking up the discarded flower as he did so. He rumbled out another few phrases, which I suspected were not aimed at either of us, as the only words I caught were "interest" and "him". He gestured sharply at the old woman to pick me up and take me inside, gazing at the flower in fascination the entire time.

By this point, the pain in my head trebled in severity from a combination of staying out too long and this new exertion. I quickly slipped away, fearing that staying a second longer would do me irreversible damage.

* * *

In my meadow, I paced, trying desperately to figure out what exactly was happening to me.

What was that strange energy? And how did it fix that flower? What did the adults' reactions mean? Was I going to be punished, or worse? Had they somehow discovered my strange situation?

Troubled, frustrated, and powerless, I wondered what exactly was going to happen next. The look in that man's eyes boded trouble, I was sure.

* * *

After a few hours had passed, I checked in to see what was going on, and noted with relief that my head was mostly back to normal. My old woman was rocking me back and forth. She was murmuring more than usual, and I detected an edge of uneasiness to her words.

"It will all be ok, baby girl. Shh, shh, shh." It came to me that I had been crying and fussing the entire time, an embarrassing and uncharacteristic action for me. I reached up to pat her frail cheek as a wordless apology.

The door opened with a loud _bang!_, and the same guard as before strode in, gesturing with excitement to the people trailing in behind him. Several men in laboratory coats bustled in, whispering excitedly over their clipboards. I was very thankful that I had chosen this exact moment to check in again, or else I would have missed whatever was going to happen next.

The last person came in, and closed the door. The androgynous figure, who was turned away from me to speak harsh words to the men in coats, possessed long, silky black hair. An aura of stifling malignance silenced all of the people in the room. Only a slight whimper could be heard—with surprise, I realized that it came from my own throat. My old woman patted my belly a few times for comfort, but I felt her hands trembling nonetheless.

Finally, the person twisted around, twirling the same wildflower with a contemplative look. I jolted—how could someone have eyes so yellow and venomous? His—I was 75% certain of gender now—features seemed familiar to me, as though I had read about them in a book and my imagination softened the reality before me. His pale, cadaverous skin gleamed in the fluorescent lighting, making the abrupt purple lines around his eyes appear stark and deadly, like a poisonous creature confidently displaying its markings.

As he drew closer and closer, my fretful mind pushed and pulled at the puzzle pieces of his features, leading me along to a stupefying conclusion that I resisted with all of my pitiful strength. It was only when my mind conjured the sound of crackling winter wheat—

_Snake. Rattlesnake. _

_Orochimaru._

* * *

A/N: Hello again friends! I know I told you that updates would be once a month, but I wrote this one up this past week and decided to post it before I go off to college tomorrow. (This probably won't be a normal thing).

Thank you so much for you reviews and follows! Every time I received a notification that someone had favorited or followed or reviewed, I blushed a tiny bit :#)

Namaste,

shapes and colors


	3. grass- submission, utility

As Orochimaru visually examined me and murmured to his companions, my brain rioted with shock. This revelation tentatively answered several of my most pressing questions, like _Where the hell am I _and _Why _does everyone's hair make them look like they're going through a scene phase, but it opened up a new, more disturbing variety of questions.

Namely, how to get myself away from the crazy psychopath who murdered thousands of people because he got passed over for a promotion, and how to continue my existence afterwards in a world full of bloodthirsty, brutally capable ninja.

My musing was interrupted by a sudden flurry of movement from Orochimaru's direction. He was going through a series of gestures—hand seals! He went too fast for me to follow, doing sign after sign until I lost count. Then, he pressed the palm of his hand to the soles of my feet.

I screamed. At first, at the very edges of my frayed mind where thought still existed, I thought he had injected magma into my bloodstream, to punish the interloper he had somehow discovered. My flesh melted. My skin crackled. Not even a year into my new life, and I was going to die, in agony, screaming, again.

And then as soon as it started, it stopped. My blood—my chakra, I supposed now—soothed and cooled me. I looked at my body, and to my pleasant surprise, everything was intact. My heart pounded out a steady rhythm, and nothing had changed, except for the peeved look on Orochimaru's face that displayed his displeasure with whatever experiment he had just conducted. He gestured angrily at my caretaker, probably ordering her to quiet my squalling.

He glared at me, muttering something under his breath, and stormed out of the room. The scientists followed him, babbling amongst themselves once more. I did not appreciate their intrusive gazes in the slightest.

My old woman rocked me, upset from the experience and the agony inside my head, until I fell out once more.

* * *

For the next three months, I stayed inside of my mindscape meadow as much as possible. I feared that I had burned through an exorbitant amount of brain tissue in a single afternoon, and was in no hurry to go through any more. I had a lot of thinking to do, besides.

My situation was tenuous. I was the prisoner—experiment?—of a homicidal scientist who had no apparent qualms about harming my person. My one ally was an old woman who could only hobble along at a slow pace, and who probably wouldn't last a second against a—

Shinobi. I was in the world of ninja; a group of people who could bend the laws of physics to their wills and liquefy organs with a single punch. I wondered where I had ended up in the timeline. I knew I had landed somewhere during the adult life of the snake sannin, but with his icky three- year body takeover jutsu, that didn't really mean much. I strained to remember specifics from the show, but memories of a TV show that I had watched as a child did not come easily. The few things I could remember—the Kyuubi, the Chuunin exams, the Invasion of Konoha—did not help my situation very much at all.

My loneliness continued as well. My understanding of the language was improving every day, a fact that I attributed to my elastic baby brain, but communication did not become any easier. My vocal cords were still too underdeveloped to form any sophisticated sounds, although I was soon able to say "No" and "Poo" like a pro.

I could tell that my continued episodes of "blanking out" to go to my mental meadow worried my caretaker. I suspected that she knew I was not a normal baby, and I hoped that she attributed it to the traumatic experience of Orochimaru's jutsu. She always seemed relieved when I emerged.

Every month or so, Orochimaru would come around again and perform the same jutsu for some arcane reason. The molten pain never lessened, but the shock wore out as I was able to better prepare myself. I always stayed in tune despite the pain, simply because I wanted to make sure nothing more nefarious happened. Not that I could protest or escape if anything did.

Soon summer rolled into autumn. I gained the ability to toddle around shakily, ending on my bottom more often than not. In the rare times that I was taken outside, I kept my hands to myself. I thought that maybe Orochimaru would think that the flower thing had been a fluke and leave me alone.

The only thing of note happened in the early weeks of autumn. One day, seemingly out of the blue, the adults seemed cagier than usual. My old woman started packing my meager belongings and staying close by more than usual. Bewildered, I stayed in tune more often, just in case something important happened. For a couple of days, things stayed like this, with tensions climbing until I was certain someone was going to snap.

On the third day, the sky grew overcast and mottled like a bruise. My caretaker took me outside with all of my things and waited, watching the sky. The rest of the compound soon joined us. The air crackled like the heat before a storm, but there was no rain in sight. Some of the adults murmured worriedly among themselves, while others stood stoically, watching the horizon for some sign.

We stayed out there all day, and well into the night. I fell asleep, but woke up when my old woman started murmuring grateful words into my hair. A fierce barometric pressure that I hadn't noticed before had disappeared, and I was able to take a full breath for the first time in days. The adults heaved sighs of relief, some laughing brightly into the night or sharing solemn, thankful glances. Curious, but relieved, I let the words of the others wash over me as I drifted back towards slumber.

Before I slipped under, though, I could have sworn I heard the word, "Kyuubi," whispered fearfully as though the mere syllables could summon a ghost.

* * *

A/N: Hello friends! I know this is a really short chapter, but the next one will be a little different and super long, so hold on tight! :) Life is a little hectic right now, but another update will be out next month, as promised!

Namaste,

shapes and colors


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